Holding Pattern
by notesofwimsey
Summary: She tried to move on, but sometimes the only way forward is blocked by what lies behind. A one-shot set after ep 4:20 Taxi, but AU for the remainder of the season.


Disclaimer: As always, the characters and setting of this story rightly belong to the writers and creators of CSI:NY.

A/N: A one-shot set after ep 4:20 Taxi, but AU for the remainder of the season. Found this in my "Current Projects" file and don't have the heart to keep going with it.

**Holding Pattern**

_Lindsay collapsed onto an empty seat on the subway with a sigh, closing her eyes briefly. One more day nearly over. __She shifted uneasily, and cracked her eyes open briefly to double check that she hadn't missed her stop, or accidentally gotten on the wrong line. Nearly three years in the city, and she still had to quell an up rush of nerves every time she was on the subway. _

"_Give me a truck and an open road any day."_

_Two stops to go._

_She thought about the case they had just closed, the look in Mac's eyes when they had realized it was Reed Garrett, Claire's son, that the Cabbie Killer had snatched. She shuddered hard once – she had been on the street herself five nights ago, soaked to the skin, standing in front of a closed subway station, contemplating several more blocks in the rain before getting home. _

_She had been so close to making the same decision as Reed, to raising a hand and hailing a cab._

_The subway lurched, the doors swung, and she opened her eyes again, double-checking, running a litany of subway stops between the precinct and her Manhattan apartment through her head._

"_Can we talk?" _

_The voice was so clear, she had to stop herself from opening her eyes again, checking to make sure he wasn't on the bus with her._

_She knew he wasn't._

"_I don't want to talk," she said it in her head, still arguing with him, still defending herself against him._

_Why had she told him she loved him? She hadn't even known herself until it came out of her mouth, until she felt him shove her away with both hands. And now both holding on and letting go had become impossible._

"_Do you know how hard you are to love?"_

"_Why don't you come over and tell me yourself?"_

_It was the "please?" that nearly broke her, that had her running for cover._

_Not again. She would not open herself up like that again._

_This time, she was out of her seat and at the door before the subway shuddered to a stop. In spite of the late hour, people streamed through the station, jostling at the doors of the car to get on, to get off. She strode down the platform, her boots kicking up drops of water from the torrential rain that still filled the streets and hung like chains around commuters' feet._

_She stopped at the newsstand near her apartment, where Mr. Singh brought in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle just for her. She handed over the two dollars he charged, her smile brittle-bright, holding everyone at arm's length while seeming to be open and friendly. It was a performance polished to a high gleam through years of practice._

"_How hard you are to love." The words danced a brutal tattoo in her head. _

_Coffee, eggs, the newspaper, a quick flip through junk mail and flyers and one letter from a legal office that she put aside to deal with later. A shower and sweat pants, a comfy t-shirt, a bottle of water to help the ibuprofen down. A trashy novel that had nothing to do with broken bodies and damaged lives, just an international ring of jewel thieves and impossible feats of derring-do, a maverick spy who answered to no one, and a glamorous but unhappy woman, betrayed by her faithless thieving lover, but saved by the steadfast love of a good man with a bad-boy gleam in his eye._

_It was two in the morning when she finally dropped the book, all questions temporarily answered. She pushed the covers restlessly off, and swung out the bed she had been nesting in for the past several hours. Another cup of tea, maybe. Perhaps a bath. Some police procedural re-run on one of the stations that seemed to do nothing but run season after season of the same tired formula shows._

_She wrapped her arms around herself and paced the floor of her small apartment, waiting for the kettle to boil once again._

_He'd stopped asking to speak to her. Stopped following her around like a puppy waiting to be kicked or petted into submission. After the case, after they had solved it, waited to hear Reed was recovering well, started on the dozen or so new cases that had been dropped on the lab since the city had been released, a weary hostage to one more crazed killer, Danny had finally retreated, leaving her strictly alone, speaking to her only about case work and lab results._

_She got used to being watched, to being monitored. She could feel Sid Hammerback, the first to diagnose the relationship growing between the two young CSIs, observing her as if she were a subject on his table. . Stella had offered to "talk – any time. You know that, right?" When Hawkes had accidentally called her "Montana," the nickname had slid through her ribs into her heart like a stiletto._

_Even Mac had spoken to her again, as unexpectedly kind as earlier, when he should have reamed her out for leaving evidence unattended. She had refused his offer of a week's vacation time. It was kindly meant, as kindly meant as Adam's offerings of coffee, as Flack's terrible jokes, but it was no use to her. Work was now, as work had always been, the universal panacea. _

_She stood at her window, watching the rain stream down the glass and pool on the wooden supports holding each pane of glass in place. She could see the streetlight wavering against the night's cover, shimmering in the puddles and rivulets of water on the streets, on the sidewalks where now only one or two people passed. She rested her forehead against the glass, and could see her own eyes, huge and brown, drowning in the rain._

**CSI:NY--CSI:NY--CSI:NY--CSI:NY--CSI:NY**

She'd forgiven him, of course. It took weeks of her not talking to him, then months of him waiting patiently for her to agree first to coffee, then a dinner out, then a proper date with tickets to a show – the Metropolitan Opera no less – then finally more weeks before she allowed him to take her to bed, to explore again the pleasure they could give each other.

Throughout it all, she made no mention of Rikki's name, asked no questions, gave no ultimatums. In his optimistic moments, Danny thought that a good sign, thought she was ready to let it go and move on.

But in his heart he knew.

They talked, as they always had – arguing, teasing, competing on the job and off. They laughed at the same jokes, watched the same shows, and rooted equally fiercely for different teams in everything from baseball to soccer. In his optimistic moments, Danny thought that a good sign, thought they were as much together as they had ever been.

But in his heart he knew.

She was, as always, meticulous at work, compassionate with victims and certain suspects, open and friendly with her co-workers. She laughed with Flack, spoke gently with Adam, turned to Stella for advice, went to Hawkes when cases went bad or hurt too much, and listened to Mac with that mixture of bravado and awe that had always characterized her relationship with her mentor. In his optimistic moments, Danny thought that a good sign – that his screw-up had not hurt her at work.

But in his heart he knew.

For every thing that had stayed the same, some thing had changed.

He had not stepped inside her apartment building for over six months; she was always waiting in the lobby for him. She never slept in his bed, no matter how late their night ended. When he looked around his apartment, there was no sign of another person in his life – no shampoo in his shower, no toothbrush by the sink. Even his mother, on constant lookout for any sign of impending grandmotherhood, would have found no physical evidence that Lindsay shared in any part of his life but work. Day by day, week by week, she brought nothing with her, and took nothing away.

That deceptively open smile that curled at the corners of her mouth, as if holding something in, had returned, the smile that had been used as a wall between her and the too intrusive world after she had received notice to return to Montana, after she had been forced to face her greatest demons. She held herself tensed and ready to run, sometimes startling when someone came quickly or unexpectedly into a room. She walked as if she had been injured months before and was not yet sure of the healing.

He had started to ask her a hundred times, opened his mouth only to have the words die in his throat. He wanted to ask her why she cleaned his kitchen and bathroom after using them. Why she never showered at his place. Why she had no favourite mug for tea she rarely stayed to drink. He wanted to ask her whether she had put him in a compartment that was permanently sealed on one setting – "screw-up sometime-boyfriend, good for sex, not trustworthy" – or whether they were ever going to get back to where they had been.

He was too afraid to ask. Because in his heart of hearts, he could not bear to hear the answer he was sure he could see in her eyes.

And she had not said "I love you" again.


End file.
